


friendship, and other maladies

by gayprophets



Series: Everyday Kepler [8]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Accidents, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, General Inaccuracies involving most sports. youre reading fanfic dont nitpick me, Humor, Peer Pressure, Pre-Canon, Skateboarding Inaccuracies, Tags TBA, hollis the teenage hellion hooligan makes a reappearance, how jake left the kepler stunt club, jakes beautiful fashion choices, rated for language, the classic coming of age tale - Whoops I Just Joined A Gang!, the pov is gonna vary wildly chapter to chapter and im sorry about that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 20:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: “Hello Sheriff,” someone says. We smash cut to see a slight man with grey hair and a sweater vest, standing next to a small window inside the Kepler Public Library. He’s got his mouth much too close to the receiver, and his face pressed into the glass pane, shoving his thick glasses askew. “It’s Mike Dangle. I’d like to report some delinquents messing around outside the library.”Outside the window, we watch a skateboarding young man in a stunningly bright tie-dye shirt and two different colored crocs pull an ollie and grind down the railing along the wheelchair ramp. His board shorts are periwinkle blue with red hearts, and his red nike socks are pulled up to just below his knees. He’s wearing sunglasses. When he lands it successfully, all of his friends - of which there are about fifteen - clap and hoot with delight.-Jake Coolice starts the summer determined to make friends, and gets a little more than he bargained for. AKA a look at how Jake both started and left the hornets that nobody asked for but i'm writing anyways.





	friendship, and other maladies

It’s early June when we look over the hills of Kepler, West Virginia. The deciduous trees have unfurled their leaves, shining bright in the sweet air like jewels, the sky marred by only a few clouds, high in the atmosphere and fluffy white like cotton balls. The sun burns the dew off the grass as it edges towards midmorning, a few sprinklers kicking on. It’s not hot yet, just barely warm enough for shorts, which we see Muffy and Winthrope wearing as they stroll down the sidewalk along the main drag arm in arm, tittering to each other. We see them as pale, overly sculpted and oddly symmetrical, just a little bit too perfect to do anything other than stick out. They’re the sort of couple that definitely has joint botox appointments. We don’t linger on them, as any combination of rich people and heterosexuality is disquieting in large quantities.

We pan over to the police station just in time to see Sheriff Zeke Owens stepping out of his car. He’s a tall, broad man with dark skin and dark eyes, close cropped hair, and a solemn looking face. He’s tired in the way that one almost skims over, the sort that evokes the response of, _ what do you mean, he always looks like that, _if one were to bring it up. Zeke buttons up the last few buttons on his uniform, then grabs the thick blue folder of paperwork he took home last night to work on and walks inside, waving at Muffy and Winthrope as he does so. He rolls his eyes when they gasp and giggle before waving back. 

Detective Megan is the only other one on duty, standing next to her desk and bending over it to do paperwork, chewing on her pen as she looks it over. She’s got a pencil stuck in her thick ponytail, half covered by her cloud of red hair and clearly forgotten. She smiles up at Zeke when he walks in, taking her pen out of her mouth. “Hey, Zeke.”

“Mornin’,” he tells her, offering a smile back, small but genuine. “How’s things?”

“Fine, fine,” she says, going back to her paperwork. Zeke goes and sits down in his office, and right as we go to pull away to find someone more interesting to look in on, Zeke’s phone rings.

“Kepler Sheriff's office, Sheriff Owens speaking,” he says.

“Hello Sheriff,” someone says. We smash cut to see a slight man with grey hair and a sweater vest, standing next to a small window inside the Kepler Public Library. He’s got his mouth much too close to the receiver, and his face pressed into the glass pane, shoving his thick glasses askew. “It’s Mike Dangle. I’d like to report some _ delinquents _ messing around outside the library.”

Zeke slides his notepad over to take notes. “Hey Mike,” he greets, pulling a pen from the #1 Dad mug on his desk. “What are they doing, exactly?”

Mike Dangle’s watery blue eyes narrow. Outside the window, we watch a skateboarding young man in a stunningly bright tie-dye shirt and two different colored crocs pull an ollie and grind down the railing along the wheelchair ramp. His board shorts are periwinkle blue with red hearts, and his red nike socks are pulled up to just below his knees. He’s wearing sunglasses. When he lands it successfully, all of his friends - of which there are about fifteen - clap and hoot with delight. “Currently, assaulting my railings. With skateboards. What if somebody needs to use them?”

Zeke writes down _ teens skateboarding outside library _ on his paper, then sighs. “Have you asked them to leave?”

Another young person of indeterminate gender does the same move, which they do land, but quickly fall off afterwards, having overbalanced. They hit the ground running and pick the board up without missing a beat, so it doesn’t drop their Cool ranking too much. “...There’s a lot of them,” Mike Dangle says. “I think they might be a gang.” 

We watch one of them attempt the grind and go flying, landing hard. The one who looks like he took a bath in a vat of highlighter fluid lets out a worried exclamation, runs over and helps him up, clucking like a mother hen and brushing off some dirt until the other boy batters him away, laughing. 

“They could be _ dangerous. _ I heard on the news that crime in the cities is spreading to the country,” Mike continues. We see the neon afflicted young man pour some of his water bottle out onto his fallen friends scrapes, then pull some bandaids from a discarded lavender faux fur fanny pack and paste them onto his bleeding knees. They’re largely ineffectual, and when we zoom in, we see that they are Scooby Doo patterned. 

Even if that’s true, it certainly isn’t spreading to _ Kepler _ . Zeke can’t recall the last time he had to deal with anything more serious than arresting poachers while the rangers scowl disapprovingly. Things happen, sure, but they’re more _ unexplainable, _ rather than _ suspected gang activity _. But, knowing Mike, who has a reputation as a frequent flyer to every official office in Kepler from the district rangers themselves to the fire department, he’ll just keep calling. He’s mostly just lonely, and he likes his peace, which is hard to maintain when you’ve got yelling teenagers around. Zeke knows this from experience, having both a fourteen year old and a twelve year old at home.

“Alright,” Zeke says, finally, having considered his options. “I’ll get on down there and check it out for ya, Mike.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Mike replies. “Do hurry. They’re… _ loud.” _

Zeke makes an affirmative noise, then hangs up. 

“Mike call ya again?” Megan drawls, looking up from her work. 

“Yep,” Zeke replies, standing up and cracking his back. “Gotta go chase some _ nuisance teens _ away from the library.” 

“Ooh, your _ favorite,” _ she says, cackling. “Have fun!”

He tosses her a halfhearted wave on his way out.

Zeke pulls into the library’s empty parking lot only a few minutes later - the drive really isn’t that long in a town this size - just in time for us to witness the young man in the tie dye shirt execute a perfect nosegrind, twist 360 degrees midair, and land perfectly. The moment the rest of his friends spot the squad car most back up nervously, looking between themselves for clues as to what to do. Two look out at him, setting their jaws - a boy with a deathhawk and bandaids on his knees, and a person with a mullet who is dressed in all black. Keith and… Horace? Holland? Horton - no, that’s a book. Whatever. Mullet kid.

Zeke steps out of the car just as the skateboarder stops and turns around in confusion, and yeah, that’s Jake Coolice. Zeke really should have known on sight, nobody else in town is that enthusiastic about neon.

“Hi Sheriff Owens!” Jake calls, grinning and waving enthusiastically, which eases the obvious nerves of some of his compatriots and makes Mullet cross their arms. 

“Hey, Jake,” Zeke says, walking over. “What are you doing here?”

Jake pops his skateboard - a gradient of hot pink, blistering orange, and brilliant turquoise - up off the ground and into his hand. The wheels are alternating eye-bleeding yellow and acidic green, and the bottom is fluorescent purple. “I started up a stunt club! We’re called - well. The Kepler Stunt Club! Pretty cool, right?” he asks, visibly vibrating with happiness. Mullet and Keith seem to find this admission a little less than _ cool, _ Keith rubbing his patchy goatee and Mullet clearing their throat. “Hollis and Keith helped me find our first members!”

Mullet - well, Hollis, Zeke thinks he was pretty close - coughs slightly, and not nearly as subtly as they think. Zeke knows Mama pretty well - and by extension the permanent residents of her hotel. Mama had helped him get his job as Sheriff to begin with, in addition to regularly volunteering her help nearly every time he’s needed it, so he kind of owes her. If one squinted and looked at it right, they could probably be considered something close to friends. 

Given the time they’ve spent together, he knows if this were just Jake by himself it’d go pretty smoothly. They’re a pretty amicable bunch of strays, if occasionally a bit confused about the laws. He has no clue where she manages to get these people from, but he’s almost certain she’d pulled Jake out of a cult living in a dumpster behind a Goodwill by the scruff of his neck and adopted him on the spot. Besides, Mama’s got high standards of behavior when it comes to her kids. Jake and Dani are some of the sweetest young people he’s had the pleasure of interacting with, aside from when he gets to go teach the latest batch of kindergarteners how and when to call 911. It’s almost a shame to shut his happiness down.

“Pretty cool, yeah,” Zeke says, and Mike catches his eye from where he’s lurking in the window and makes a shooing motion with his hand, then melts back into the murky depths of the library. Zeke sighs. “Listen, Jake, I’m glad you’re having fun, but y’all have to take this somewhere else.”

Jake’s eyebrows are hidden behind his sunglasses, but we can tell he’s furrowed his eyebrows from how his forehead and nose scrunch. “What?” he asks. “Why?”

“Well, for one, doing _ stunts _ is generally frowned upon in public areas like this,” Zeke says.

Jake looks towards the library, and he frowns. “Well, I guess we -,”

“But it’s not _ illegal_, is it?” Hollis asks, interrupting him. Zeke turns his attention over to them. They’re dressed like someone who used to ascribe to the emo subculture, and has just recently discovered other fashions that they liked. In this case, they’re drifting towards something more militaristic in nature, growing out their navy blue hair dye and wearing a black camo shirt. All their clothes are too big in the rather deliberate way that Zeke recognizes from when his sister started realizing that she was, in fact, his sister. “There’s no _ signs _ saying we can’t. And there’s no one _ here _, so we aren’t disturbing anyone or interrupting foot traffic.” 

“You’re disturbing Mr. Dangle,” Zeke offers, pointing to where Mike has appeared in the window again, arms crossed and scowling. 

Jake looks crestfallen and gives an apologetic wave. “Sorry!” he calls. We watch Mike fade back into the shelves to avoid Jake’s unrelenting earnestness, covering his mouth with his hand.

_ “I’m _ not,” Keith mutters. Zeke gives him a sharp look, and he flushes, but doesn’t back down. The rest of the new Kepler Stunt Club all shuffle their feet and stare at the ground. Hollis just looks _murderously _bored.

“Find somewhere else, okay?” he says. Jake nods, picking up his fanny pack. They’re all heading off Zeke realizes something.

“Jake!” he calls. Jake turns around. “Wear a helmet! And say hi to Mama for me!”

Jake nods, touching the puffy blonde hair on the top of his head. “Thanks, Sheriff!” he says, and then they’re all out of sight.

Mike throws open a window just before Zeke gets back into his cruiser, waving vigorously. “Sheriff,” he says, “I just so happen to have made some extra coffee, would you want any?”

“No thanks, Mike,” Zeke replies, “I’m busy, y’know? Got some _ criminals _ to catch.”

For just a moment, Mike looks crestfallen, then he schools his face back into his typical faint glower. He shuts the window. 

We see this pattern continue for the next few weeks. The station gets a call from someone in town about a nuisance group of teens, and one of them has to go and chase them off. The second time it happens, Jake is gently holding on to Hollis’ bicep and asking to leave in quiet, plaintive tones when Zeke shows up. Zeke manfully resists the urge to laugh, seeing as Hollis is a little under five feet tall on a good day and Jake, being a solid, stocky 5’6, could probably pick them up like a kitten and haul them away without breaking a sweat. Keith just stands behind them with his reedy arms folded, jaw set like he’s looking for a fight.

It gets less funny when Detective Dewey goes to tell them to loiter elsewhere. He’s soon to be _ Deputy _ Dewey, which is a prospect Zeke loses sleep over with _ stunning _ regularity, but Megan flat-out _ refuses _ to take on any more authority. 

Dewey pages in, not quite crying, but audibly upset over their apparent flagrant disrespect and how they_ just ain’t listening to him, please come help me Zeke, _ so Zeke has to pop into the cruiser and help him chase the stunt club off. This time, Jake stands behind Hollis with Keith, looking rather nervous, eyes flickering from the back of Hollis’ neck to the side of Keith’s face and then to the ground, but he doesn’t say anything, just flushes slightly when Zeke frowns at him.

And then one day they knock over the stands outside of Kepler’s local florist’s shop, and the owner calls him, threatening that the next time it happens she might just _ break out her shotgun, swear to fuckin’ god, Zeke, I’ve had goddamn _ ** _enough_ ** _ of those idiots, didn’t even bother to pick none of it back up. _ So, Zeke sighs and pours himself a scotch in his office that night before picking up the phone and calling Mama.

**Author's Note:**

> three fics in 2 days? yeah. its fine.  
you can find me on tumblr at themlet. there is no update schedule or beta reader for this fic, we die like men. comments and kudos appreciated!  
also thanks to diego for naming mike dangle. justin mcelroy levels of naming genius.


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